Why do teams voluntarily do FIRST without adult technical mentors?

[Alexander McGee]

Originally Posted by phrontist

It would be a deceit of omission to let that slide. Sadly, none of the above assertions are true.

I understand your argument Mr. Baker, and I've read quite a bit of what The Denim Clad One has put forth, but I still can't bring myself to embrace that viewpoint totally. There must be a middle-ground here, but I don't know what it is yet.

With your ability to string words together so eloquently, the way you have several times in this thread, I would think that you are not giving yourself enough credit. Your posts reflect the intelligence of someone far beyond your years, and yet you claim that you have difficulty grasping this concept.

Let me help explain what you and I didn’t get in High School, and what I now understand about this program. It is one thing to be a student on a team, and an entirely different thing to be a mentor. From the posts you have made in other threads, it is blatantly obvious that you have utilized experience with computers and programming in your FIRST and personal life experiences. Where, may I ask, did this come from?

Whether it was from this program or not, both situations point to the same thing; FIRST works. For some reason or another, you have learned something on your team, or expanded on what you already knew. This not only makes you want to do and know more, it excites the people around you.

Imagine, if you would, being a mentor on a team instead of a student. Now, your priority is to engage your students both mentally and mechanically to get them excited. On my team, this means being fairly hands-off and letting the students design and manufacture everything. Knowledge, however, does not come from nowhere. Someone has to show you how to do something, directly or indirectly.

How did you learn to program? Did you have someone over your shoulder showing you how to write code? Or, did you get a tutorial online or a book from a store? One way or another, you learn by example and demonstration. You can not simply “get” something like programming; there is inherent information that you need to know before you can learn. This is similar to mechanical aspects as well; if you have never learned how to use a screwdriver, you may waste a good amount of time trying to figure out how it works, but having someone over your shoulder to demonstrate and show you how to use it makes things go a lot easier.

Continuing with the screwdriver example, arguably some people will remind me that a fairly intelligent person can figure out how to use one in a certain amount of time. I would insist, however, that this wasted time is not necessary, as the ultimate goal is to teach someone how to use a screwdriver. What does it matter where you learned it from? Be it a book, tutorial, random experimentation, or someone using one alongside you.

However, there are certain things that are next to impossible to learn with experimentation alone. Try learning to use CNC mills or 3ds max without any help files, tutorials, or guidance at all. See how long it takes you to learn how to master them.

Al that being said, there is much disagreement about the role of an engineer on a team. Many people do not see eye-to-eye on this, because some things work for some teams, but would rip others apart. I agree with you, 100% that direct student involvement is vital to inspiration in this program. However, consider for a minute this example:

Imagine a team who has been around for over 10 years in this program, with a group of engineers form a successful corporation who are dedicated to making the team great. This team has been a national champion, a Chairman’s winner, and is arguably one of the best teams around. Now, picture a new student who has joined this team, as a freshman. The mechanics of the team allow for minimal involvement of the students in the design and build process, and even less for an inexperienced freshman. The corporation whom the team belongs to likes seeing winning trophies in their display case, and having their company’s name in the papers. The student goes through the season without ever picking up a screwdriver, but watches the engineers with a hunger to learn. He does not ever get to touch or drive the robot, but goes home and learns about other ways he can grow on this interest. He loves being a part of a team who wins, and loves being able to be proud of the robot’s performance, even if he does not get to work on it. The team wins many awards that season, and the student asks his parents for a VEX kit for his birthday. He learns how to use it over the summer and learns more about design and mechanics that he observed from the engineers the previous season. The next season, he observes more and more, and then decides to pursue this stuff as a career.

I’m going to stop there and explain a little bit. I don’t like that situation at all, not one bit, but it has happened exactly as I painted it. The fact of the matter is that a successful robot can inspire a student just as much as one that he built himself without help. I have seen, from personal experience, students on such teams get more inspired and motivated than some of the most technical students in this program. In my personal opinion, engaging the students technically makes the inspiration process work a bit better for those who may not have any interest in the technical aspects of a team. Nevertheless, teams with and without engineers continue to produce excellent students into the corporate world.

You seek a middle ground, but why does it have to be a war? You may not see this now, but I guarantee you will a few years after you graduate and get a job with a company; it does not matter how much you got to touch the robot, it does not matter who built the robot or designed it or wired it, it does not matter how many awards you won or how many times your robot lost a match. None of this matters as long as you are still inspired.

The fact that you continue to peruse these forums and post shows me that you are inspired. You may not know how it happened, and might disagree with the methods that your team’s mentors used; but it happened nevertheless, and you are now someone’s success story, and have made Mr. Kamen proud. You may not like his viewpoints, and may not like what has happened in your FIRST carrer, but you have defineately been inspired, and that's all Mr. Kamen really wants of you.